Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 41
Pileated Woodpecker
John James Audubon, betw
Bird

Pileated Woodpecker

Dryocopus pileatus
Woodpeckers (Picidae)
Year-round resident. Expected at the creek in every month.
Field marks
A crow-sized woodpecker, black with a flaming red crest, white neck stripes and white underwings that flash in flight. The bird the cartoon was based on, and not much exaggerated.
Male & female
The male has a red forehead and red moustache stripe; the female's forehead is black and her moustache is black.
Voice
A loud, wild 'kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk' laugh and slow, heavy drumming that carries through the woods like someone building a shed.
Diet
Carpenter ants and beetle larvae dug from dead wood, plus berries.
Habitat
Mature forest with big dead trees and downed logs.
Nesting
A deep cavity in a large dead tree, freshly excavated each year; 3–5 eggs. Last year's hole becomes someone else's house.
Size
16–19 in long, 9–12 oz: a crow-sized bird of about a can of beans, with a hammer for a face.

Look for its signature: rectangular holes chiselled into rotten stumps, with a pile of fresh chips below, as if a tiny carpenter had left in a hurry.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 5 calls on 2 days, first Oct 30, last Oct 31

2300:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 0 calls08:00 — 3 calls09:00 — 0 calls910:00 — 0 calls11:00 — 0 calls12:00 — 0 calls1213:00 — 0 calls14:00 — 0 calls15:00 — 0 calls1516:00 — 1 calls17:00 — 0 calls18:00 — 1 calls1819:00 — 0 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
23Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 0 callsOct 29 — 0 callsOct 30 — 2 callsOct 31 — 3 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 31 8:26 am · 100% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 6:59 pm · 89% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 8:27 am · 93% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 30 8:46 am · 98% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

The pileated woodpecker is a large, crow-sized woodpecker with a prominent red crest, white neck stripe, and a mostly black body. This woodpecker is native to North America, where it is the largest confirmed extant woodpecker species and the third-largest extant species of woodpecker in the world, after the great slaty woodpecker and the black woodpecker. It inhabits deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes, the boreal forests of Canada, and parts of the Pacific Coast. This woodpecker is primarily an insectivore, eating insects that live in trees; it is famous for making large, nearly rectangular carvings into trees, which are used to extract prey inside the tree or to make a nest. The species has a large range and an increasing population, causing it to be categorized as a species of "least concern" by the IUCN.
From Wikipedia, "Pileated woodpecker", CC BY-SA 4.0.